(Submitted by Wayne Parrish)

During the normal course of business, it may be necessary to place a service call with your office technology provider. When placing that service call, it is important that the service call be placed with the service company and not with the sales account executive. Although your sales account executive would like to be available for ALL your business needs, there are times when they may be otherwise occupied, either assisting another client or performing a demo with a prospective new client. We would not want your service need to be delayed based on a sales account executive not being able to take or place a service call for you in a timely fashion.

Once the service call is placed, typically either via a phone call or a submittal through a web portal, it is reviewed by a service or helpdesk team member. At that point, the team member determines if the use of a remote call might be able to address the issue for the client faster than sending a technician onsite to their business. If, however, a remote call is not advisable, and a technician is needed onsite, then the service request is placed in a queue to expedite the service need as quickly as possible.

In most cases, a technician should arrive onsite within a 2–4-hour timeframe of the service call being placed, or at least the same day, depending on the severity of the call and the service team’s number of calls ahead of yours.

When the technician arrives at your place of business, before they begin inspecting the device, you should expect some sort of communication between them and a member of your team regarding the service need. After the technician has discussed the service need with your team member, then they will begin to inspect and run diagnostics on the device to determine the cause of the issue and possible courses of action.

Generally, technicians should carry a decent number of parts in their vehicles and should be able to address the service needs on the first call. Although, there are times that a rare part is needed and will have to be ordered and replaced at a later date.

After the call has been completely resolved, some dealerships may send out a survey to the client requesting feedback on the service call so that the service provider may know how the call went and if there are any additional issues that need to be addressed.

Please be aware that many companies record all service calls. Finally, customers should have the option to request a service history report or business review of their account that should show important items including the following:

• Average service call response time for their account and any calls placed
• Average first call fix percentage
• Uptime percentages for their system or fleet of systems
• Number of service tickets per device
• Surveys that their company may have filled out

Still have questions about service calls? Feel free to reach out and we would be more than happy to answer any further questions that you may have.

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